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Normally i despise when people put terrible music into track videos—-but in this case, Ducrot Pascal has put the terrific boss tune “To Lose My Life” by White Lies which is a perfect match for the wonderfulness which is the Alpine A310. Nicely sorted, mate!

and here’s a bonus: White Lies performing “To Lose My Life” LIVE on Fearless TV. I saw them live in NYC a couple of years ago at CMJ and they were superb live.

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I found a strange photo earlier in one of my Alpine books of an A310 prototype—-which made me start searching online for more prototype photos.

The A310 was introduced in 1971 as glorified successor to the Alpine throne, and by 1976 Alpine introduced the car with a 2.7L V6. The car pictured here is a A310 V6 prototype which has seemingly been preserved!

What’s most striking here though, is the Maserati Merak-aping rear end! Was this a disguise for testing purposes or was this really being planned at some point? Even as a die-hard Alpine fanatic, i would think this is outright plagiarism! Obviously the design never actually made it anywhere, as the A110 production continued to 1984 with the design virtually unchanged, aside from body kits, wheel designs, and small tweaks. Maybe this was just an ‘inside joke’ inside Dieppe!

I’m not sure how they mounted this onboard camera for this drive (is it on his shoulder!?), however the effect is that it makes you feel like you’re sitting between the driver and navigator…..very disorienting, however feels like you’re really in that superb Alpine A310 V6

Most people don’t realise just how SMALL the Alpines are, until they either see one in person or see pics of it next to other ‘small’ cars….as most of you know, the BMW 2002 is not exactly a large car….but the Alpine makes it look pretty tall!

The A110 makes any car look huge….but even the A310 is tiny in real life. The first time I saw these cars in real life, i was amazed at how efficiently small they are in person.

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to follow up the video of the day, a classic pic of an Alpine A310, giving you an idea of its overenthusiastic wheel arches and over the top body kit—-but i still love it so! this one is from 1978, if my notes are correct.

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As some of you know, i have a deep, winding obsession with the Alpine A110. It is the ultimate holy grail of automotive wonderfulness. Through my obsession with the A110, I have also developed an appreciation for the successor, the Alpine A310. For a long time, i didn’t really care much for the A310, however now i do. I found these photos on a japanese site, from what i presume to be the owner of the car. A lot of A310s were very badly modded and turned into pseudo-rally cars, etc….however I have a distinct appreciation for close-to-stock A310s. I think they were very unique cars.

Rob Ijbema is the brilliant artist who has been painting a high volume of paintings devoted to race cars. These paintings are also for sale, if you develop an unhealthy obsession with one of the works! A few months ago, i posted a link to his page. Here are some of the latest favourites of mine (especially the pair of Alpine A310s!) on his car-a-day blog: